Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gilead, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Life, Death, and Beauty
Christian Faith, Mystery, and Ministry
Memory, Vision, and Conviction
Estrangement and Reconciliation
Loneliness and Love
Summary
Analysis
Today John celebrated the Lord’s Supper and preached on the Words of Institution in the Gospel of Mark. He’s been thinking about embodiment, physicality, and his love of life a lot lately. When most people had left, his wife brought the boy to the front and said he ought to have some of the leftover elements. Even though the boy is too young, John gives him bread and wine.
The Lord’s Supper is a Christian sacrament—a simple meal celebrated in remembrance of Christ’s death. The “Words of Institution” describe Jesus’s last supper with his disciples before his death and are often recited during the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Because the Supper emphasizes God’s presence in simple, tangible objects, it makes sense that it would tie into John’s thoughts about physicality and life. Though many churches only admit children to the Lord’s Supper once they’ve reached a certain age, as John’s does, he offers his son some of the remaining bread and wine after the service is concluded. The implication is that by the time his son is old enough to formally participate, John won’t be there to serve him the bread and wine.
Themes
The light in the church was beautiful that morning. In the old days, John would sometimes wake up before dawn and sit in the sanctuary to watch the changing light of the sunrise. He loves the settled, welcoming sounds the old church building makes when he’s there alone, and he encourages his son to experience this for himself. Of course, he knows they’re planning to pull the building down after his death.
Throughout the novel, John is sensitive to the beauty of light, especially as a symbol of God at work in the physical world. He also loves the church where he’s spent most of his life and feels at home there even when it isn’t filled with congregants. He accepts the fact that the church won’t last forever, though, as no earthly thing does. The aging church is closely associated with John’s waning lifespan.
Themes
When John walked through town at night, he’d sometimes see people’s lights on and wonder if there were a problem he could help with, though he usually kept going, not wanting to intrude—sometimes past the Boughtons’, since he didn’t know what was troubling them in those days. He could walk through the whole town in an hour in those days, trying to remember what he knew about the people in each house—the ones that didn’t go to his church usually went to Boughton’s. He’d pray for them all.
This is another example of how John’s lonely life as a widower actually complemented his role as a minister. Presumably unable to sleep, he used the nighttime hours to pray for Gilead’s people. The fact that he didn’t presume to know or be able to fix everyone’s problems shows his humility as a minister. His obliviousness to the Boughton family’s struggles (which will be explained later) also shows that even people who know one another well aren’t always acquainted with one another’s deepest struggles.
Themes
John hopes that if his son remembers him, this might explain him a little bit—his “crepuscular quality.” He hopes it will help his son understand that when he speaks of those lonely days, he usually remembers peace and comfort more than he remembers grief.
“Crepuscular” means “active at dawn or dusk,” like John walking the streets of Gilead just before sunrise. John also seems to associate this quality with the way his life has often stood on the cusp between loneliness and joy.
Themes
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